Sermon: Searching for Wilderness

Luke 3:1-6

Searching for Wilderness

James Sledge                                                       December 9, 2012

Recently the pastor at Lewinsville Presbyterian invited me to lunch, her way of welcoming a new colleague to the area.  We settled on a date that worked for both of us, and she asked where I’d like to eat.  “I don’t really have any favorite spots yet,” I said.  “You pick.”  And so she later sent me an email saying, “Let’s try Pie-Tanza . It’s at 1216 West Broad Street.”  But the email also added, “It’s in the Giant strip mall.”

1216 West Broad is pretty precise.  I can put that right into the GPS app on my phone, and it will take me right there.  But even though the street numbering system we have takes most of the guesswork out of giving directions, we still like to use landmarks to help. 

“You turn right just past the McDonalds.  You go past the elementary school and it’s the second street on your left.  We’re the house with blue shutters and the old VW in the driveway.”  Never mind that the address is displayed in big brass numbers on the door as well as painted on the curb.  We still like to locate things with prominent markers. 

At one time this was absolutely essential. There was a time when many roads did not have names, and there was no uniform method of assigning addresses.  I lived out in the country growing up, and our address was Route 3, Box 289-C, not much help in finding the place.

In ancient times, a similar problem existed in telling history.  The modern world is on a neat and logical calendar system, and so we could mark Pearl Harbor Day on Friday and say, “It happened on December 7, 1941.”  We don’t need to say, “It happened in FDR’s third term as president, two years after the Germans invaded Poland.”  But ancient writers did need to say something like that. 

When the Bible tells us about Isaiah’s call to become a prophet it begins, In the year that King Uzziah died…  When Luke writes his gospel, he has to do the same sort of thing.  He begins the story of John’s the Baptist’s birth with In the days of King Herod of Judea… When he reports the birth of Jesus he tells of a decree from Emperor Augustus,  at the registration taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. 

And when he begins to tell the story of John’s ministry in our gospel today, he does something similar. In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness.

Wow! A little locational overkill, don’t you think?  Fifteenth year of Tiberius should have been enough.  Throwing in Pontius Pilate is okay, I guess.  But Herod and Philip and Lysanias and Annas and Caiaphas?  Is all of that necessary?

Trick Questions

Years ago George Carlin did a comedy routine about attending Catholic school.  In it he recalled trying to trip up priests with elaborate questions. Some were classics such as "If God is all powerful, can God make a rock so big God can't pick it up?"  Another involved being on ship at sea when the priest died on the day by which one had to receive communion or be guilty of a horrible sin.  But when it was too late, the ship then crossed the international date line. Carlin's questions has much in common with the one Sadducees ask Jesus in today's gospel.  Not that trick questions ever seem to bother Jesus. 

Employing trick questions or other linguistic gymnastics to question authority is commonplace. At times it is a great tool for puncturing pomposity, perhaps what Carlin was doing with priests' easy doctrinal certainties.  But playing with words is also employed by legal teams figuring out how a company or individual can violate the intent of a law or statute without actually breaking the law.

Whatever the rules are, what ever authority we find over us, people seem intent on devising ways to undermine or minimize it.  We're not far removed from Stewardship season at my church, and I once again heard that question regarding a tithe.  "Now is that 10% of pre-tax or after-tax income?" In other words, What are the loopholes?

We learn early on that we can play with words in ways that undermine rules and authority, as any parent of a young child will tell you. I'm not sure why we chafe so under rules or authority, but it's an old story; see Genesis and the Garden of Eden.  That story, along with many others, makes clear that we seek to get around rules and authority without much regards as to whether they are good rules or not. As we mature, we may come to appreciate the way our parents' rules and authority protected and nurtured us, but we still push against rules and authority.

This need to break free of constraints is surely a force that moves humanity forward. It is often a strength, but like all strengths, it has a dark side. And all too often we humans operate without much awareness of our dark, shadow sides.

We can laugh at Sadducess playing word games with Jesus.  We can enjoy how Jesus isn't fazed by their attempts to undermine his authority. But of course we play similar games ourselves, even if we are unaware of them.

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Labels

We worry a lot about labels. Often we define ourselves and others by labels, using them to figure out where we and others fit.  I'm a southern, progressive/liberal, middle-class, Christian, middle-aged, suburban, married male.  Other people may label me differently, and I may embrace or object to the ways they categorize me.  And I have my own labels for those who use unkind terms for me.

Labels are a big part of politics, and in recent years, labels have become a big part of Christmas.  Christian, secular, and politically correct are labels that jump to my mind when I think of Christmas, at least our culture's observance of Christmas.  My Facebook page is already awash in posts from people wanting to "put Christ back in Christmas" or angry at stores that say "Happy Holidays."

The phrase isn't new.  Irving Berlin wrote the popular song "Happy Holiday" back in 1942. It's been a Christmas standard for years, often changed to "Happy Holidays." I grew up hearing Perry Como sing it at Christmas, and I never heard anyone suggest it yanked Christ out of Christmas. But people have slapped the "politically correct" label on Happy Holidays, and for some folks those are fighting words now.

I'm not sure why this is so.  It seems we are a more partisan society these days, one where labels often form lines of demarcation between sides.  We do live in a time of change and uncertainty, a time with a fair amount of anxiety and fear, and we seldom behave our best at such times. Partisanship and labeling may be a way that we try to create clarity and simplicity out of the world's complexity. There's right and wrong.  Which side are you on?

A Christian Christmas presumably gets us on the "right" side, at least as far as God's concerned. But it seems downright remarkable that "Merry Christmas" versus "Happy Holidays" would become a litmus test determining right or wrong. Surely the words on seasonal banners at Target or Wal-Mart say almost nothing about whether or not anyone actually follows Jesus.  But admittedly, labels are a lot easier than actually following Jesus.

Today's reading from Isaiah contains these rather threatening words.
   Therefore says the Sovereign, 
      the LORD of hosts, the Mighty One of Israel:
   Ah, I will pour out my wrath on my enemies,
     and avenge myself on my foes! 

Now perhaps this might seem an extra incentive to make clear our allegiances, to stamp "Christ" and "Christian" all over ourselves and our stores and malls.  Except these words are directed at those who have the right labels on all the banners at all the stores and malls.  The enemies of Yahweh are the ones who sing God's praises and celebrate the LORD's festivals with great fanfare, but who fail to do justice and righteousness, who do not take care of the widow and orphans, the weakest and most vulnerable of that society.

In Matthew's gospel, Jesus speaks of those who get the labels right not entering the kingdom while outsiders who inadvertently serve Jesus are deemed worthy.  (see Matthew 7:21-23; 25:31-46)  That would be something, Jesus saying to the agnostic store clerk who wished you "Happy Holidays" and who volunteers weekly at the homeless shelter, "Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world."  And Jesus then saying to the "Christian" who accosted the same clerk for taking Christ out of Christmas, but who never so much as noticed the suffering and injustice all around him, "I never knew you; go away from me you evildoer."

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Who Put You in Charge?

I noticed something I'd not seen before as I read this morning's psalms.  No remarkable revelation or insight accompanied this notice, but it made me wonder.  Psalm 122 speaks of Jerusalem. It prays for peace within her walls and ends with this line. "For the sake of the house of the LORD our God, I will seek your good." 

This refers to the Temple which is, of course, long gone. A later Temple built in its place is long gone as well.  And so I wondered, if the psalm calls for my prayers on account of a non existent Temple, is that psalm now invalid?

I found myself wondering about Scripture and its authority.  Historically we Protestants have invested a great deal of authority in Scripture.  Doctrinally that is still the case for Presbyterians although I know my share of church folks for whom this is far from true.  Authority is given on a case by case basis, and only after considering what the particular verses say. They'll allow a text to make its point, and then decide if it did so convincingly.

The question of authority comes up in today's gospel reading. Some of the Jewish authorities want to know by what authority Jesus says and does what he does.  Jesus refuses to answer after his opponents refuse his similar question about John the baptizer.  But I wonder what sort of answer from Jesus would have been acceptable.  Was there some paperwork that would have granted him such standing?  What if some prominent, well-to-do Jerusalem families had vouched for him?

Where does authority come from?  How about Scripture's authority?  What about Psalm 122? Can I cull it because it speaks to a non existent situation?

Do we recognize authority beyond ourselves? I think the persistence of religion points to an innate human need to connect to something bigger than self. We seem to need an authority beyond ourselves.  But at the very same time, we seem to be extremely suspicious of such authority. Much of America's celebration of liberty, freedom, and individualism arises from a distrust of authority.  Traditionally this was balanced by a certain allegiance to a greater community good and to faith, but these allegiances have seemed to have weakened while distrust has grown.

There is an old Bob Dylan song entitled "Gotta Serve Somebody."  I take the lyrics to be pretty good theology. We have to serve somebody. It's just a matter of whom.  However, as a reasonably good Calvinist, I also know that we most often prefer gods of our own design. Not surprisingly, liberals often serve a god who is remarkably in step with their liberalism while conservatives serve a god remarkably in step with their views.

That brings me to a final bit of wondering. If no authority outside ourselves brings us face to face with a God who challenges and transforms who we already are, can we really encounter God?

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Sermon Video: The Days Are Surely Coming

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Sermon: The Days Are Surely Coming

Luke 21:25-36 (Jeremiah 33:14-16)

The Days Are Surely Coming

James Sledge                                                               December 2, 2012

The days are surely coming, says the Lord.  And indeed they are.  The day will come when school and college are over and you have to find a job.  The day will come when children grow up and move away.  The day will come when someone you trusted abandons you. The day will come when you retire or the job ends and the focus of much of your life disappears.  The day will come when the doctor calls with a terrible diagnosis, and if you avoid that day, the day will still come when your body simply fails you.

And very often, when those days come, people find themselves in crisis.  “Why didn’t I work harder in school and spend a little less time partying?”  “Why didn’t I spend more time with my children when they were young?”  “How do I fix this relationship I’ve neglected all those years?”  “What do I do now without a career?”  “Why didn’t I take better care of myself? “What are life and hope about now that I have cancer?”

The days are surely coming, says the Lord.  And when they do, we often have to reassess our lives and take stock of where we’ve been and where we’re headed.  When the days that come are really big things or really scary things, we sometimes discover that our lives are way out of kilter.  We’ve been focused on things that don’t matter so much, and we neglected the things that really do.

The days are surely coming, says the Lord.  We know those days come, but we are not all that attentive to the passage of time. We are too busy being busy, and we’re too much in a hurry.  People seem to have a perverse pride about that here in the DC area, but the situation is much the same everywhere. You can hear the “We’re too busy” refrain in every corner of this country, and very often, it takes the arrival of one of those days that are coming to free us from it.

Today we enter the season of Advent, a time of preparation, expectation, and waiting for a day that is surely coming.  And the first Sunday of Advent is always a stark reminder that this day, much like those other days that come and throw our lives into crisis, will reveal the ways that our lives have gotten out of kilter, how they’ve become overly focused on what doesn’t matter and neglectful of what does. 

Another Advent begins, reminding us that God will not simply abandon the world, that the conflict in the Middle East will not simply go on forever, that hate will not ultimately triumph over love, that the poor will be lifted up, the captives released, and the oppressed set free.  It all sounds so wonderful, but it also seems so far away and so hard to pay much attention to. 

Another Advent begins, and we’ll busy ourselves with shopping and decorating and cooking and wrapping and preparing special music and special services.  And then it will end in a frenzy of travel and family gatherings and warm feelings and nostalgia, and then it will get put away, packed up in the basement or drug to the curb with the dried out remains of the Christmas tree.

Trust Issues

I must admit that today's gospel reading unnerves me a bit.  Its ending is quite gruesome, with those who opposed the ascension of their king executed.  I must also admit that I often skip over such passages, excising them from my abridged version of the gospel.

But for some reason, I felt the need to sit with this "parable of the ten pounds."  It's so similar to Matthew's "parable of the talents" that both must point to a common parable.  But Luke's version is so different that he must have had a very different message to get across. As I contemplated it, I thought of all sorts of things that mitigated some of its objectionable nature. For instance, it would have sounded very real to life to people of Luke's day. Local, Middle Eastern kings were incredibly cruel to their enemies.  And it is a parable, not doctrine or even allegory.

But then I quit trying to explain away its difficult parts and simply sat with it a while.  And I found myself drawn to a line not in Matthew's version. "But the citizens of his country hated him and sent a delegation after him, saying, 'We do not want this man to rule over us.' "The line doesn't really fit with much else in the parable.  Presumably the slaves that are the main characters are not "the citizens" who sent a delegation.

I can certainly locate myself in the parable as a servant of Jesus who has been given resources to use on Jesus' behalf.  But today I found myself identifying with those citizens who did not want Jesus to become their king.  I like Jesus just fine, and I am happy for him to bless me or give me some spiritual goodies, but I'm not so sure about having him be my king.  Perhaps that's not so different from Jesus being my master, but it struck me as so today. I want to be a citizen, with all its benefits.  But I don't want to be under the rule of Jesus.

If you are a student of history, you probably know that kings are sometimes wonderful rulers.  When kings truly have their subjects' best interests at heart, kingdoms can run much better than democracies. Democracies don't really provide a better government in terms of getting needed things done. Rather they attempt to prevent power from accumulating in ways that can abuse and oppress.  In a sense, we embrace a very inefficient form of governing in order to preserve our freedoms and prevent our being treated like slaves.  We just don't trust kings.  The really good and kind ones turn out to be quite rare.

And I think I bring some of that distrust to my relationship with Jesus. Is it really a good idea to turn my life over to him? 

One of the things I have very slowly, and still only partially, come to realize is that it is impossible to convince someone or argue someone into letting Jesus be king.  You simply must experience something of the depth of God's love, of Jesus' longing for you, before it makes much sense to hand over your life to him.  And Luke certainly knows about such love.  After all it is Luke's gospel where Jesus says "Father, forgive them" from the cross.  And it is Luke's second volume, the book of Acts, where Saul, a sworn enemy of Jesus, encounters the risen Christ and becomes Paul, one of the most dedicated subjects Jesus has ever had.

Right now, in my own spiritual journey, I find myself spending less time trying to be better at following Jesus. Instead I'm trying to pay attention to, and become more aware of, just how much God loves me, just how much Jesus wants to love me. I need to feel that, to experience that, because it seems I have some trust issues.

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God's Coming Dominion and Wal-Mart

“Because the poor are despoiled, 
        because the needy groan,
     I will now rise up,” says the LORD;
    “I will place them in the safety 
         for which they long.”  Psalm 12:5

As the mad dash of Christmas shopping began in earnest last week, with Black Friday sales that started on Thursday, there were also protests at Wal-Mart.  In the DC area, a large crowd - though not nearly so large as the crowds inside - gathered to complain that Wal-Mart paid its employees too little, gave them scant benefits, and used intimidation and coercion to keep them keep them silent. I don't know about any intimidation or coercion, but the low pay and lack of benefits are public record.

In today's gospel, a blind man shouts at Jesus and his entourage as they pass by. People tell the man to be quiet.  Presumably Jesus has more important matters.  After all he has just explained to his followers that he is headed to Jerusalem, to arrest, abuse, and death. But Jesus comes over to the man and gives him what he longs for.  And I have to think that Luke includes this story in this spot as a reminder to us of Jesus' priorities.

As we enter into another Advent, we will once again hear of God's long awaited dominion. From Luke we will hear that this dominion will lift up the poor and the lowly, but will bring down the powerful and send "the rich away empty." The gospels speak of a coming great reversal that we are called to become part of now.

Over the centuries, Christians have often been involved in efforts to help the poor and needy. At times such efforts have helped transform society and make God's kingdom a bit more visible.  But at times these efforts are charity done to make us feel better. Churches spend huge sums of money to go on mission trips to exotic locales, but the run of the mill poor in our midst are often invisible to us. Wal-Mart employees who don't make enough to live on don't quite generate the interest or excitement of a mission trip to Haiti.

I don't mean to disparage missions to Haiti. I am not against such things at all. But if we pass by the blind man on the side of the road, scarcely noticing him as we travel along the way, we have gotten off track.

I am no socialist, but it is clear that unrestrained capitalism is antithetical to the gospel picture of God's kingdom, the new realm or dominion of God.  We Presbyterians claim that one of the primary purposes of the church is "the exhibition of the Kingdom of Heaven to the world."  I take it that a similar purpose is what made it impossible for Jesus to ignore a blind man on the roadside, even when he was so focused on going to Jerusalem.

Me, I'm sympathetic to those workers at Wal-Mart, but hey, they're having a really big sale on flat screen TVs inside.

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Dryness

"Once God has spoken." That's a line for this morning's psalm.  It then continues, "twice I have heard this: that power belongs to God."  But I was already stuck on the first part. Sometimes this is what communication with God feels like to me, so infrequent that I might say, "I heard God speak once."

One of the more common spiritual complaints I've heard over the years is about what many have labeled "dryness."  I called it that myself before learning that it was a well established term to describe those periods when prayer or meditation or Bible reading feel empty. Perhaps that is why Psalm 42 begins, "As the deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God."

I can never remember who said it (I think it was someone from the Alban Institute.), but I've always remembered this succinct comment about Mainline Church difficulties.  "People come to us seeking an experience of God, and we give them information about God."  Thirsty people come to our churches, and we talk a lot about water, but don't seem actually to have any. Turns out that thirsty people aren't really much interested in complex discussions about how water works, its molecular properties, or its capacity to wear down rocks dripping over the eons.  They just want a drink of water.

The possibilities for quenching spiritual thirst seem to multiply continually.  There are more spiritualities available than one can count. (If you don't believe me, check out the category in a Barnes & Noble or browse it online.) Such proliferation suggests a lot of dryness and thirst out there, and so it seems that any church that provided a good watering hole would be overwhelmed with folks. But on the whole, most congregations experience a different dryness.  They are parched for people.

 Not that Mainline churches haven't tried to address this. We recognize that something is wrong, and if you look around, you will find every sort of experimentation with worship. Contemporary, traditional, weekly communion, Taize, informal, and more; and on a variety of days and at a variety of times. Sometimes such experimentation has indeed produced a long, deep drink of cool water. But other times it seems the proverbial "rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic."

I think this morning's psalm may provide a little help in understanding why worship works or fails, regardless of style.  "For God alone my soul waits in silence; from God comes my salvation. God alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall never be shaken." A lot of activity in churches is little more than institutional machinations, new and creative ways to talk about water.  Very often it forgets about God. I does not wait for God or trust that God is there.  Instead it desperately attempts to create that which it seeks.

We are about to enter into Advent, a time of waiting. Waiting is a much neglected discipline in our world. It does not feel productive or busy or any of the other things that our culture so values.  But waiting is the spiritual equivalent of listening, an attentiveness that allows the other to speak. Maybe the lack of such attentiveness is one reason God seems to speak so infrequently.  Come to think of it, maybe that's the reason we so seldom actually hear one another.

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Sermon video: Our Truthiness - God's Reality

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Sermon audio: Our Truthiness - God's Reality

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Sermon: Our Truthiness - God's Reality

John 18:33-38b

Our Truthiness – God’s Reality

James Sledge                                                                              November 25, 2012

If I were forced to choose, I think I would probably say that the best show on television, certainly the funniest, is The Colbert Report on the Comedy Central.  If you’re not familiar, Stephen Colbert is a real person, but also a character, a parody of an egotistical, conservative, cable-news talk show host, and one of the better satirists since Will Rogers. 

One of the recurring features on the show is a segment called “The Word” which is always introduced with the phrase, “And that brings us to tonight’s word,” eliciting wild cheers from the studio audience.  The segment appeared in the show’s premier episode in October of 2005, and that night’s word was “truthiness.” 

Truthiness made fun of the all too common practice of cable news pundits stating as fact things that are only the speaker’s opinion.  Colbert says facts are not things you get from books but that you feel in your gut. “That’s where the truth comes from ladies and gentlemen, the gut,” says Colbert.  “Did you know that you have more nerve endings in your stomach than in your head?  Look it up. Now somebody’s gonna say, ‘I did look that up, and it’s wrong.’ Well mister, that’s because you looked it up in a book. Next time, try looking it up in your gut.”

For some reason, the word “truthiness” caught on.  You can find all sorts of articles on it.  It is actually in the New Oxford American Dictionary, with Colbert credited for it.  The American Dialect Society named it their word of the year for 2005, defining it as “the quality of preferring concepts or facts one wishes to be true, rather than concepts or facts known to be true.”  I suspect the word caught on because it is such a perfect word to describe what is sometimes passed off as truth.  But I wonder if it doesn’t also resonate simply because we humans have such a difficult relationship with truth.